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1991-08-29
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ALMANAC 1992, by Jeff Napier & Another Company
TRANSPORTATION
_____________________________________________________________
The Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh's plane, got 10
miles per gallon. In order to maximize fuel economy with
then-existent technology, Charles decided to forgo a view and
had to take off and land while looking through a periscope
that peeped around the engine and a gas tank. There was
no front window. For his own fuel he took two canteens full
of water and 5 ham sandwiches. He was in competition (for
the first solo transatlantic flight) with a certain Richard
E Byrd, the famous polar explorer.
_____________________________________________________________
In Germany is Volkswagenwerk, the largest car making factory
in the world. There are over 43 miles of railroad tracks at
the plant. 65,000 people work there. But General Motors
employs more people at all of its many factories. They have
nearly 1 million workers, more than the population of a
good-size city. If you had all the GM workers stretch out
their arms and hold hands, the chain of people would stretch
from New York to Georgia. It would take 15 hours of non-stop
driving to pass all those people. One out of every 200 adults
in America works at General Motors.
_____________________________________________________________
How many vehicles are there in America? Or more to the point,
what would it look like to see all the vehicles at once? At a
freeway interchange in Los Angeles a half-million cars and
trucks pass daily. This is the highest traffic count in the
US. Perhaps you can picture it if you live in LA or have seen
such traffic on tv. Well, you would have to stand there and
watch for almost six months to see as many cars and trucks as
exist in America.
_____________________________________________________________
If all the parked cars and trucks in Hong Kong were started
up and driven onto the roads, they wouldn't fit.
_____________________________________________________________
There is a street in Italy that is less than 1.5 feet wide.
_____________________________________________________________
We might not care much about 48 horsepower these days, but a
man in Iowa drove 48 horses hitched together.
_____________________________________________________________
In 1978 Hans Millikin, a 39-year-old Baptist preacher
crawled 1592 miles on his hands and knees.
_____________________________________________________________
Sometimes success or failure is irrelevant. Evil Knievel did
not succeed in his motorcycle jump across the Snake River
Canyon, but made $6 million for trying.
_____________________________________________________________
At age 98, Dimitrion Yordanidis of Greece could run a 26-mile
marathon (7 hours, 33 minutes)
_____________________________________________________________
A police officer stopped a car in Jackson, Mississippi
because the driver was weaving drastically. The driver was
blind and was being guided by a passenger who was drunk.
_____________________________________________________________
A generally overlooked mode of transportation is motorized
pogo sticks. One factory in Los Angeles made some that can
get 30,000 hops per gallon with their little two stroke
engines. This would seem to be very economical commuting.
Considering that an experienced sticker could move forward
about three feet per hop, these sticks would deliver only
about 17 miles per gallon.
_____________________________________________________________
Here's another stupid record: A woman in England had to take
her drivers' test 41 times before she was awarded a license
to drive. It sounds to me like the only time she got to
practice was when she was taking her test. That's one way to
get driving lessons without paying for them. I'd say the
examiner got taken for a ride.
_____________________________________________________________
In the late 1800's drivers (of teams of horses) drove as much
as 84 hours a week.
_____________________________________________________________
The average person walks about 500 miles a year, or over
35,000 miles in a lifetime. Much of this mileage is just
padding back and forth across your house or on the job, from
your coffee break to your desk, to your coffee break, etc.
_____________________________________________________________
There are about 85 million bicyclists in America.
_____________________________________________________________
The world's longest bridge is in Louisiana. It is almost 24
miles long.
_____________________________________________________________
In 1965, flying Gemini 4 in an orbit 90 miles above the
earth, astronaut James McDivitt sighted a UFO. He said it
looked like a cylinder with arms sticking out and appeared to
be 30 to 50 miles away. Thinking it was probably just a
man-made weather observation satellite, he took pictures
anyway. As it turns out, the closest satellite was more than
1200 miles away. Unfortunately, his camera was not well
equipped for photographing a relatively small object over 30
miles away, and so the pictures came out too fuzzy to
identify anything certain.
John Glenn was surprised to find a cloud of fine sparkly
things following him around in orbit until mission control
explained that they were droplets of the urine he had
earlier expelled from the craft.
_____________________________________________________________
A good thing to carry in your car is a piece of thick plywood
about one foot square. Many times, when you have to jack up
the car and change a tire, the ground is so soft that the
small base of the jack digs itself in.
When changing a flat tire on a car, and especially on a
motorhome or big truck, after cracking the lug nuts loose,
jack up the vehicle just enough to lift the wheel a fraction
of an inch off the ground. This way, you won't have to try
to lift the replacement wheel onto the axle. Simply roll it
into place.
_____________________________________________________________
Cars didn't have gas gauges until 1922.
_____________________________________________________________
The T-Model Ford was first produced in 1908 and the last in
1927. Altogether, 15 million were made.
_____________________________________________________________
In 1910, 6,000 trucks were made in America. In 1925, 15 years
later 530,000 were made, an increase of almost 100 to 1.
_____________________________________________________________
When car radios were first introduced, laws were passed
against them in many states because it was thought they would
distract drivers and cause accidents. Recent research
indicates radios actually make driving safer, because they
keep drivers alert.
_____________________________________________________________
Driving with your windows down can cut gas mileage by as much
as 5 miles per gallon.
_____________________________________________________________
Here's a gas station scam that still happens occasionally:
When the service station attendant checks your oil, he pulls
out the dipstick and wipes it off as he is supposed to do.
Then, he pushes it only part way back into the engine, so
that it will indicate that the oil level is low. You, of
course, ok the purchase of a quart of oil. This brings extra
money to the owner of the station, and perhaps a commission
to the attendant. If you are lucky, the attendant only
pretends to put more oil in your engine, using an already
empty can. Otherwise, too much oil may end up in your
engine, causing damage to internal rubber seals and
possibly contributing to clogged oil passages.
_____________________________________________________________
8000 times a year, a car battery explodes in America because
someone didn't observe safe procedure when jump starting a
car. The battery releases hydrogen gas, especially when a
heavy load is demanded, such as trying to start the car. The
trick is to avoid setting the invisible cloud of hydrogen on
fire. Since the electrical system negative side (except on
some older cars) is grounded to the whole car, connect a
jumper cable to the positive terminals first. Then connect
the negative cable, not to the battery terminals, but to a
substantial piece of metal on each engine away from the
batteries. The spark of closing the circuit will happen away
from the hydrogen. Wear safety goggles. The car which has a
healthy battery should not be running. The change in load can
damage its charging system.
Speaking of batteries, here's a hint that can save you
cost and trouble if your battery goes dead, and almost all
motorists have this problem at one time or another.
There are really only two reasons this will happen.
Either the battery is shot, or there is something wrong
elsewhere in the electrical system. To find out if it is
simply a bad battery, and therefore save yourself the cost of
professional diagnosis do this: Take the caps off the
battery. Most 'sealed' batteries actually have removable
caps. Take the center wire off the distributor so the car
won't start. Have someone hold the key in the start position
for 15 seconds while you look into the top of the battery
(while wearing goggles). If you see bubbles forming in only
one cell of the battery, that cell is bad and the battery
must be replaced. If no bubbles form, or all cells form
equal amounts of bubbles, the problem is elsewhere. Check for
corrosion on the battery connections.
Please remember that battery acid can cause skin and eye
irritation and destroy clothing if not kept at a distance.
_____________________________________________________________
There are 400 million owners of automobiles in the world,
there are twice as many bicycle owners. Fortunately bike
owners will never have to worry about dead batteries.
_____________________________________________________________
For every car made in the world, there are three bicycles
manufactured.
_____________________________________________________________
If you get a headache while driving your car, have the
exhaust system checked immediately. You may be getting carbon
monoxide poisoning. Every year, there are 14,000 fatal
accidents in which the driver goes off the road for no known
reason. Possibly the drivers fell asleep due to poisoning.
_____________________________________________________________
A new technique has been born to reduce noise in luxury
automobiles. Actually, instead of actually reducing the
noise, it doubles it. A microphone is placed in the engine
compartment and a computer chip analyses the noise. Then it
makes sound waves that are opposite (phase) what it hears.
The reverse waves are played through the car's stereo system,
cancelling much of the noise in the car.
_____________________________________________________________
The fastest and highest flying airplane ever built is the
SR-71 Blackbird. A commercial passenger jet typically
cruises at 35,000 feet (about 7 miles) and just over 500
miles per hour. The Blackbird can fly at over 80,000 feet
(40 miles altitude, just 10 miles short of outer space) and
2000 miles per hour (mach 3). Even in the very thin air at
that altitude, the special titanium skin of the delta wing,
twin engine black aircraft heats up to over 500 degrees
fahrenheit and requires up to 1/2 hour after landing to cool
off enough that ground crews can service it. At 80,000 feet,
the sky looks different. In the middle of the day it can
range in color from very dark blue to almost black.
_____________________________________________________________
The US military at one time had a flying aircraft carrier. It
was a huge dirigible called the Macon which had a runway and
carried five airplanes.
_____________________________________________________________
How did dirigibles get to be called "blimps?" A British
Lieutenant was making a routine inspection with all the men
turned out. He tweaked one of the gas bags with his fingers
and then he voiced his imitation of the noise it made. The
men thought it quite amusing and the name stuck.
_____________________________________________________________
In 1942, Geoffrey Pyke came up with an alternative idea to
aircraft carriers. He proposed making the huge ships out of
ice. Built into each ship would be a large refrigeration
machine to keep the ship afloat. The plan was given serious
attention by the US navy for awhile. They discovered that if
wood fibers were cast into the ice in the ratio of 1 part
wood to 9 parts ice, the material was stronger than concrete.
Soon it was discovered that conventional steel aircraft
carriers would be cheaper to make.
_____________________________________________________________
There has been an alternative idea proposed for transporting
huge amounts of oil across the oceans. Instead of loading the
oil into steel tanks in huge ships, it could be poured into
huge rubber balloons and towed behind tugboats.
_____________________________________________________________
The first sneakers, called Converse All Star, were put into
production 74 years ago. They are still being made at a rate
of just over 1 million per month.
_____________________________________________________________
If you like models, you'll enjoy putting together a kit from
the Eastwood Company of Pennsylvania. They make a little
replica of a standard V8 automotive engine. If you put it
together right, it will start up and run. Only problem, it
costs more than the computer this is being written on at
$2,195.00.
_____________________________________________________________
Take a guess: When were skateboards invented? Skateboards
were invented in 1963.
_____________________________________________________________
chapter end.
ALMANAC 1992 is freeware. Please feel free to copy and
distribute as long as all files remain intact & unchanged.